The black-eyed man raised his rapier. Around him, the dancers stopped, uncertain of what was happening. Ushers began to push through the crowd of patrons in order to get this man off their stage. He smirked at them and bellowed in accented Erevo, “Death to all Erevans. Soon, the Nomori will rule!”
He turned around with startling speed, sinking his blade in the chest of the lead ballerina. Her eyes opened in a voiceless scream as the beautiful white silk of her dress slowly turned red. He withdrew his rapier, and she crumpled to the ground.
The theater stood in shocked silence for a moment before patrons began to scream and run from their seats. The doors were soon clogged with courtiers trying to escape. Several Erevan men tried to tackle the Nomori man to the ground, but they were quickly felled by rapier strikes. No one else dared try.
Only one figure, a man by his height, still stood before the stage. He wore a dark cloak that shielded his eyes. Nadya’s breath froze. It was the same man.
She hadn’t seen any identifying characteristics when she was up on top of that manor, but the way this man carried himself, a half swagger that showed no fear, no deference to anyone, mirrored the figure from that night.
“Why in the name of the Protectress…” Kesali looked down for a moment, shaking. Then her head rose, and she turned to the pale-faced usher behind them. “Get word to the Duke’s Guard and Lord Marko. I want guardsmen here now.” Her voice carried authority Nadya did not know she had.
He bowed and hurried off.
The black-eyed Nomori was not finished. With a smile born of madness, he reached inside his shirt and pulled out a small parcel. A fine gray powder sprinkled from it, covering the now-bare stage. The strange man had disappeared.
The scent of gunpowder touched Nadya’s nose. The thought of Kesali in danger was enough to overcome her paralysis. She stood so fast the chair flew back and hit the wall, shattering.
Kesali turned around to see Nadya grab her hand. “What are you doing?”
“He’s going to blow himself up, along with anyone who stays here,” Nadya said from between clenched teeth. She hustled Kesali down the stairs, keeping herself between Kesali and the chaos of the theater.
At the bottom, dozens of people packed in, sealing the exit shut with their bodies. Panicked shrieks echoed through the lobby. The air was hot and thin, filled with Erevan breath. The scent of blood trickled in as people kicked and clawed at one another to get through the madness. Pretty dresses tore, jewelry was thrown, and parasols thrust out like swords. Nadya dodged a strike from a white-haired woman.
She had to get Kesali out of here. With one hand holding Kesali’s arm, she shoved her way through the masses of people and out into the street. They kept going until they were on the other side, pushing through the gathering crowds.
“We must help them,” Kesali said.
Nadya was loathe to leave her, but even more hesitant to start an argument she could not win. She sat Kesali down on a bench. “Stay here.” Before the Stormspeaker could protest about duty or some other ridiculous excuse, she added, “You are no use to this city dead. I’ll go.”
Kesali nodded. Nadya ran back toward the theater as a group of guardsmen, led by Lord Marko, arrived on the scene. She ducked her head to avoid recognition. If she could make it to the doors, she could tear them off their hinges, creating more room for escape.
An explosion rocked the street. Bits of stones and wood rained down on carriages and people alike. Nadya swore as a chunk of rock hit her in the back. She stumbled forward.
The ruined remains of the theater smoked in the evening air. Stone foundations jutted up, their edges sharp and blackened. The stairs Nadya had walked not an hour ago spiraled up into nothing. The once-beautiful carpet smelled like burning hair and smoked. Soot-stained courtiers crawled out of the rubble, calling for loved ones and servants. Nadya fell to her knees.
All her abilities, and she couldn’t stop this.
Tears stung her eyes, squeezing out of the corners and trickling down her cheeks. She shook silently. Each breath grew harsher until it felt like she was swallowing sand. First Jurek, then Brishen, now this. It was as if the city’s storms gods were taunting her, gutting and slaying as she hung helpless like a puppet on strings. Nadya had always wanted to believe her abilities were a gift from the Protectress, meant for something, but the past week suggested the Elders were right. She was cursed, and she was a curse. Who would die next because she wasn’t strong enough to save them?
A soft hand on her shoulder roused her from the downward spiral of her thoughts, and Nadya wiped her eyes. Kesali knelt down beside her. “It’s all right to be scared, to feel for others’ pain. There’s no shame in tears.”
“You’re okay?” Nadya said, voice crackling. Blood dripped off a cut in Kesali forehead. She couldn’t see any other injuries.
“Because of you. I don’t know how you moved so fast, but we are alive because you acted and I did not.” Kesali touched her wet cheek. “I owe you my life.”
Nadya didn’t want there to be debts between them. “Believe me, I owe you a lot more. So I think we’re even.”
Kesali looked past her, expressionless. For a moment, Nadya feared she had said something wrong. But the other girl remained impassive. She stared out beyond the wreckage of the theater, the weeping courtiers, their satin singed and bloodstained, to the horizon where the slightest bit of sunlight peeked out from behind gray clouds.
“Kesali?” Nadya put a hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t respond. Nadya looked around for a medic to call for help or a guardsman, or even Lord Marko. She bit her lip and shook Kesali slightly. “You’re scaring me. Please…” Please let it not be something I did to you.
Abruptly, Kesali stood. She did not look down at Nadya but instead walked forward slowly and deliberately to the center of the street, in the midst of the crowds. Lord Marko saw her and called out. She ignored him. Her glassy eyes surveyed all present as if they were nothing more than dumb animals to be led to water. Nadya stood up, wary. Had the strange man also gotten to Kesali? Her eyes were not black, but there was something…not mortal about them. Something ancient.
More people noticed the lone Nomori girl in the middle of the street. They watched, waiting, as Nadya did. She did not know what else to do. She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, ready to spring the moment something changed. If Kesali was under someone’s control, she would stop her from doing anything dangerous, even if it meant exposing her own secret.
“Hear me,” Kesali said. Nadya jerked back. It wasn’t Kesali’s voice; it was darker, heavier. She did not shout, yet the sound seemed to carry to every corner of the city. It commanded silence, and all who heard, from servants to courtiers, complied.
“In seven days hence, the sun will fall back into shadow and the rains will come.” Kesali paused, and it was quiet enough that a single breath felt like the beat of a drum. To Nadya’s ears, she was speaking in Nomori. But the rapt attention of all the Erevans that surrounded them gave her the uncanny feeling that what Kesali said rose above the boundaries of language.
“A Great Storm such as this generation has not seen. Day and night will become one. Air will turn to water. Stone to silt.” Her gaze moved through the crowd. “When the rains end, the water will remain.”
Behind her, Lord Marko stood surrounded by his guardsmen, and though he stood strong, Nadya could see his hand shaking on the hilt of his rapier.
“Hear me. On the day of the solstice, the day of the Blood Sun, the sea will settle, the floodwaters gone.”
The final word rang out in the stillness. Kesali dropped to the ground.
Nadya couldn’t quite process what had just happened. It didn’t seem to be the work of the strange man who turned the eyes of men black, but it was equally powerful. Perhaps more so. She could not rid herself of the feeling she had been in the presence of something greater than the mortal world.
Rooted as she was, she
did not realize Marko had already made his way to where Kesali fell. Nadya swore and rushed over, grinding debris to dust under her boots. She stopped just short as the Duke’s son took Kesali in his arms. Such a look of concern on his face. He brushed the stray hair out of her eyes and ran his hand down her face in a way that said there was much more between them than a casual invitation to the theater.
Kesali’s eyes flickered open.
“Do you remember anything?” Marko asked, helping her sit up.
Kesali took a long breath. “Yes. I just predicted the next Great Storm.” She glanced up at Nadya, who tried to look reassuring.
“Can you move? We must tell my father before it spreads panic in the city.”
“Yes.” She levered herself up. Nadya reached out to steady her, but Marko was there.
“I have a horse here. Come, we must hurry,” Marko said. He barked a few orders to his guardsmen, who dispersed through the crowds. Some would continue to help here. Others would work to ensure there was no panic.
“I have to,” Kesali said to her. “It’s—”
“Your duty.” She tried not to make the words sound bitter. “Go.”
As angry as she might feel toward Lord Marko, who in truth had been nothing but kind to her, a Nomori girl far beneath his station, she understood the urgency. Tensions had always been high between the Erevan and Nomori inhabitants of Storm’s Quarry. The attack on the theater was enough to ignite a lot of rage, and perhaps even more reaction like what happened at Brishen’s bakery. But with the impending threat of a Great Storm, the city might tear itself apart in anger and fear. Nadya had never witnessed a Great Storm, but the stories told by her parents and the Elders were enough to scare her.
She glanced back to see Kesali surrounded by a dozen of the Duke’s Guard. She gave her a quick nod, and before Kesali could call out to her, Nadya shoved through the crowd toward the stairs and home.
The trip down to the Nomori tier was a blurred haze of white, brown, and damp. Nadya didn’t know how much time passed before she descended the stairs to the bottom of the city. There, she pushed through tired-eyed workers as they returned home, still worn out from the festivities the night before. How would they look when news reached them of Kesali’s prediction? Relief caught in her throat when the squat stone building of her home came into view. She skirted around a merchant hawking cloth from a cart and saw a figure lying in front of their doorstep.
Mirela coughed. Her body, pitifully small before the door, shook. The scent of blood carried through the air.
This time, Nadya did not freeze. This time, it was her mother.
She sprinted through the street, knocking people over without a backward glance. “Mama!” Nadya skidded to a halt. A few cobblestones cracked under her feet. Falling to her knees, she cradled her mother’s head. Another coughing fit tore through Mirela’s body, and Nadya held her until it subsided. She hadn’t realized the illness was this bad. It had only been a cough.
Mirela spat out blood, then turned to look up at her daughter. “It’s all right. I am all right. It just came over me all of a sudden.”
More tears threatened to choke her, but Nadya held them back. She gently picked her mother up and carried her inside. Once Mirela was nestled in a cocoon of blankets on her pallet with a spitting bowl beside her, she sealed both doors shut and lit the coals in the kiln. Her actions were automatic, copying what she had seen her grandmother do in countless Nomori households when she was little. Before long, the room glowed with warmth, burning the damp out of the air.
Her mother coughed again. The harsh hacking sparked against Nadya’s nerves. Each one sounded like it could be a last breath. She swallowed hard, forced a smile, and then turned around.
Mirela smiled weakly. “You don’t have to do this, Nadya. I can take care of myself. It was only a little fall.” Another coughing fit stopped her from saying anything else, and Nadya glanced away as she spat phlegm into the bowl she had placed there.
“It was more than that. You could have…been really hurt.” She could not bring herself to say died. “Has that happened before?”
Mirela’s hesitation before her quiet no was enough for Nadya to know the truth.
“I may not be Grandmother, but I know that’s a lie.” She sat beside her mother. “I am so sorry. It should have been me doing the deliveries. What can I do?”
“Tea would be nice.”
“Of course.” She put a kettle over the coals. As it heated, she paced back and forth, trying to find words to tell her mother what had happened on the fourth tier.
“Should I fetch someone?” she asked, stalling. “Grandmother, maybe?”
“I don’t want her to worry. I just overexerted myself today.” Mirela sighed. It ended with a harsh hack. “It was as much my fault as anyone’s.”
“I should have taken the packages.” Nadya walked over to the bed and gently took her mother’s hand. “I should not have let you go. I should—”
“What’s passed is past.” Mirela squeezed her hand. Nadya nodded, throat dry. Her mother was not just speaking of today, but of the past weeks, months, that Nadya had put herself before the family. There was not necessarily forgiveness in her tone, but a chance to be better.
“Mama, something happened today. At the theater.” Before Mirela could say anything about Nadya skipping her duties to attend a frivolous courtier pastime, she added, “A Nomori man let off an explosive. I think a lot of people were hurt.”
“Protectress watch over us all. There will be blood to be paid for such an act. I cannot begin to fathom what drives a soul to that.” Her gaze ran up and down Nadya’s body. “Were you there? Are you hurt?”
“Yes, but I’m fine.” Nadya swallowed again. She could not seem to get any moisture into her mouth. “Mama, there’s more. Kesali—she made a prediction in the middle of it all. There’s another Great Storm coming next week.”
Mirela looked past Nadya to the small tapestry that hung on the far wall, depicting the mountains of legend that their people came from. “Yes,” she whispered, “Protectress save us all.”
The kettle whistled, but its sound was far off, buried beneath the weight of things to come.
Chapter Seven
Early the next morning, a gong rang through the damp air, rattling the teacup in Mirela’s hands. Five short trumpet blasts followed it. Nadya winced. It had been a long night of tending to her mother. Instead of feeling exhausted, her limbs buzzed with excess energy. Too long had passed since she’d left the confines of their small house behind and ran across rooftops, leaving nothing but wind. She rapped her fingers against her leg.
“A gathering,” Mirela said, her voice hoarse. “No doubt to announce the Stormspeaker’s prediction.”
Nadya flinched at the title. She didn’t like to think of Kesali as the Stormspeaker. That was Kesali’s mother. But, she supposed, after what happened in the fourth tier yesterday, the city would think of her no other way.
“You must go.” Mirela set her tea down. “I feel much better, and you look like you are ready to tear a hole in the wall.”
If only she knew how accurate that was. Nadya shook her head. “I know what will be said. I am not leaving you alone.”
The door opened, and Shadar staggered in. Nadya heard him unbelt his rapier and hang it up before he parted the curtain and entered the room. Dark circles made his eyes look hollow. He only managed half a smile as he greeted them. “I wish I came with better news for the two most beautiful women Storm’s Quarry.”
Nadya snorted. What must they look like, her hair knotted, her clothes a day old, Mirela thin and pale. “Papa, we know.”
“You were there, with the Stormspeaker?”
That title again. She nodded.
Shadar sat down, groaning. “I have been on my feet all night. The Duke and Lord Marko had me running through the tiers, preparing the Guard. They’ll make the announcement today, starting up in the palace, and then moving down through the city.”
/> “We heard the summons,” Mirela said. She coughed into her hand, and Nadya smelled blood. Her mother tried to hide it, but Shadar stood. He walked over and gently took her hand.
“What’s this?” He turned to Nadya when Mirela started to protest that it was nothing.
“She fell,” Nadya said quietly. “I found her outside the door. It was a lot worse last night.”
“Exactly. I am better this morning,” Mirela said. It ended with a cough that sprayed tiny red droplets across Shadar’s chin. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, covering her mouth.
Shadar wiped it away with a sleeve. “My dear, you need a physician.” He looked at Nadya. “Go to the third tier. Do you know the Cinnabar district? Good,” he said when she nodded. “There is a doctor there who works part-time in the Guard’s infirmary. His name is Arkady Maslak. His practice has a pestle and diamond carved into its sign. Tell him I sent you, and to come here as soon as possible.”
“It is really not nece—” Mirela could not finish the sentence for coughing.
“Nadya.” Her father’s tone, calm and unemotional, scared her. “You must be quick.”
Something she would not fail at. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
*
Dr. Maslak wasn’t all too receptive to a strange Nomori girl knocking on his door, even when Nadya told him who her father was. He looked down his long, thin nose at her, scrutinizing, she imagined, everything from her wrinkled vest to her red-rimmed eyes.
“What are the symptoms, again, you say?” he barked.
The Iron Phoenix Page 7
